


let me fall for you

by vindicatedtruth (orphan_account)



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M, Post-Mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 12:35:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7976932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/vindicatedtruth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been months since David has come home from his mission, but Cook still hasn't talked to him.  When it's Cook's band who invites him to their concert in Sandy, David has to finally face what has changed between them - and what has remained the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let me fall for you

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt on the cookletakink meme:
> 
> "Barebacking, their first time after Archie asks Cook if they can stop using condoms, wanting to feel Cook inside him completely, with nothing between them, and knowing that neither of them ever intends on being with anyone else. 
> 
> Bonus points if you then also include their first time after Archie's mission, and something like Cook offering to use a condom just because it's been two years, he doesn't know if Archie still wants the same things or if they're in the same place, and Archie being hurt, because if they never needed one before, then he assumes that must mean that while he was gone, Cook was with someone else... with the misunderstanding quickly being cleared up, of course ;)"

 

 

 

* * *

    

_“You know what happens when you dream of falling? Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you.”  
—Neil Gaiman_

 

* * *

  
  
_There was a time when you could tell the world that you, you knew I would fight for you._  
  
David is stunned when he hears that line for the first time, now that he has come back home. He’s been listening to all of Cook’s songs, devouring every bit of his music that he can get his hands on, missing the sound of his voice after being deprived of it for so long. It feels a little bit like coming back to life after two years — like a parched desert finally drinking in its first drop of rainfall.  
  
The lyrics of this particular song, however, feel like acid rain instead.  
  
_But now I know that I can let you go ‘cause I wrote the last song I’ll write for you._  
  
Somewhere in the vicinity of his chest, David feels his heart burn.

* * *

  
  
Arms is the one who texts him. He hasn’t heard from Cook at all.  
  
‘ _Playing in Sandy tomorrow night. You coming?’_  
  
His first instinct is to say no, resenting the fact that it’s Cook’s  _friends_  who are inviting him, and then immediately feeling guilty about his unwarranted bitterness.  
  
What right does he have, really, to feel hurt?  
  
_I’m through calling out your name._  
  
Unbidden, the image of Cook under the stage lights blazes in his mind: capable hands playing the guitar, mouth making love to the mic, hooded eyes scanning the crowd, his smoky voice filling the room as loses himself in his music…  
  
God, David  _yearns_  to see him like that again, even if… even if…  
  
_I can tell something’s not the same, ‘cause we’re both losing at the loving game._  
  
Even if Cook never looks at him like that ever again.  
  
_We’re just drifting apart, two beats in two different hearts. Before I say goodnight I want you to know…_  
  
He texts back. ‘ _I’ll be there.’_

* * *

 

Cook looks  _happy_  to see him.  

And David  _doesn’t_  understand.

“I honestly don’t know what’s about to happen,” Cook remarks playfully to the cheers of the crowd, which volume increases exponentially when David finally relents and steps out onto the stage.

_I have no idea what’s happening either_ , David thinks dazedly as steps up to the mic.

Cook keeps avoiding his eyes, even as they fall back into the (painfully) familiar banter that has always characterised their interactions, as if nothing has changed between them.

But David knows that’s… not quite true. Not anymore.

“Are you holding back, like the way I do?” David’s voice cracks at the question, and he prays that the audience attributes it to the fatigue in his voice, rather than the breaking of his heart.

The back of his neck prickles as he feels Arms watching him, watching  _both_  of them closely,  _meaningfully_.

… What’s going on?

* * *

 

Afterward, David gathers all of his remaining courage and comes up to the stage, just as they’re setting down and packing up the instruments.

He clears his throat, hesitantly announcing his presence. “Hey.”

Cook looks up at him in surprise, and David feels his insides warm at the way Cook’s entire features immediately  _soften_  at the sight of him. “Hey Archie,” Cook greets him with a smile, and David  _aches_ ; he  _missed_  being called by that nickname, the one Cook himself came up with, six years ago.

… God, has it been that long already?

The rest of the band has gone quiet, and from his peripheral vision David can actually  _see_  them pausing to look curiously at both of them. He mentally scrambles to remember what it is he came up here for.

“Would you like to come home with me?” he blurts out.

Cook stares, and David inwardly curses as he belatedly realises what it sounds like. “With my family, I mean,” he hastily clarifies. “Our house is relatively near here anyway, and Mama’s already thinking of what to cook for dinner, and the guys can come too if they want! Mama loves having visitors over, she misses having a full house…” 

He knows he’s babbling, like he inevitably does in Cook’s presence, and he takes a deep breath as he reigns himself in. “And my sisters have missed you,” he adds softly.

_As have I_ , he doesn’t say.   _So, so much_.

“Uh,” Cook stammers, his features suddenly shuttering, like blinds have fallen over the windows of his eyes, which David used to be able to see into, once upon a time. “That’s very kind of you, Arch, but I really don’t wanna impose…”

David is trying not to let his disappointment show at how Cook’s already back-pedalling—is Cook really that determined to  _avoid_  him?—when Arms suddenly interjects.

“You can come stay with us.”

Their heads swivel in unison as they both stare at Arms incredulously. 

“What?” David asks, thoroughly confused.

Arms grins. “It just so happens to be hotel night.” He jerks his head towards Cook. “You can stay in Dave’s room.”

… Oh no, this is  _not_  a good idea at all. “Um,” David starts.

“ _Uh_ —” Cook tries to say.

“Dave and I are supposed to be roommates,” Monty pipes up with a smile. “But I can go stay with Nick here.”

Nick points a drumstick at him. “As long as you bring beer, we’re good. And you’re staying on the sofa.”

What in the  _world_  is going on? “That’s very sweet of you guys, but you really don’t have to—”

Arms suddenly claps his hands together, making them all jump. “That’s settled then! Archuleta, you’re coming with us tonight.”

* * *

 

Cook is unusually quiet during the entire ride to the hotel; even his smile is tight and distracted when they checked in and bid the other guys goodnight. He holds the elevator door open for David, and David tries to smile and thank him when he steps in, but Cook isn’t even looking at him.

He swallows back the lump forming in his throat and tries to quell the pang rising in his chest. He’s starting to regret his decision to come here, especially if… if he’s unwanted.

_We’re hanging from words, your tongue is a fire, and I can’t keep putting out the flames_.

He meekly follows Cook as they enter the hotel room. He looks guardedly at Cook’s silhouette, backlighted by the glow of the lamp; his entire frame is one long line of tension, his shoulders stiff and hunched, his hands clenched tightly into fists at his sides.

The door clicks shut behind David—and something  _snaps_.

David gets the air knocked out of him as he finds himself pushed back, Cook’s hand cradling his nape the only thing stopping his head from banging against the door. He opens his mouth both to gasp in surprise and to ask  _what is really going on_ , but both his words and his breath is swallowed into Cook’s mouth as Cook suddenly kisses him.

David’s eyes widen when Cook groans into his mouth, kissing him as if he’s  _dying_. Cook’s hands snake inside his shirt, and David arches with a whimper when Cook’s fingernails dig deep at the sensitive skin of his lower back.  

“ _Cook_ ,” he gasps when Cook wrenches his mouth away only to latch onto David’s neck when he throws his head back, and David shakily threads his own hands into Cook’s hair to cling helplessly when Cook begins sucking hard at his skin.

David tries to speak, even as his legs automatically  _open_  for Cook as Cook settles himself between them, because he knows they should  _talk_  before—before they fall back into  _this_ —but whatever he’s going to say dissolves into a moan when Cook begins palming him roughly through his shorts, and  _oh_  his entire body is  _singing_ for Cook’s touch, like a dusty piano finally being played by its master after being abandoned for so long.

_No_ , David thinks in despair as he feels Cook frantically working on his buckle, panting hotly and heavily by David’s ear.

_Cook wasn’t the one who left_.

* * *

 

He doesn’t know how they made it to the bed, doesn’t know how they managed to litter the pristine hotel carpet with their clothes; in the steamy haze of desperation and need, David only comes back to himself when they fall into the sheets in a tangle of limbs, hands flying everywhere and tongues being sucked into each other’s mouth as if they’re  _thirsty_  for it.

David doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore, doesn’t know what’s  _happening_ —all David knows is, he doesn’t want to  _stop_.

He bucks shamelessly into Cook’s fist when it curls around his cock, already slippery with precome; it’s heady, and a little frightening, how adeptly Cook can still play his body like the frets of Cook’s guitar, how his touch can still bring David to dizzying heights of blinding pleasure, how  _naturally_  they have fallen back into this carnal dance like no time has passed between them.  

He doesn’t know how it came from not hearing a word from Cook at all in these months since he came home, to  _this_ , to Cook pumping his cock and devouring his mouth with such brazen  _hunger_ , but at the moment, David’s body has completely overtaken the questions of his mind and the yearning of his heart as he strains desperately towards  _release_.

“Please,” he says hoarsely as Cook proceeds to suck several more bruises into his neck, his throat, his collarbone. He hitches his thighs over Cook’s hips and writhes longingly against him, uncaring of how wanton he is when he begs, “ _Please fuck me_.”

And it is then, and only then, that Cook finally blinks out of his lust-induced daze; his eyes flutter open and he looks down at David with something akin to wariness, mixed with profound… regret?

“Archie,” Cook rasps, seemingly struggling for words, “I can’t, I—I don’t have a condom with me right now.”

The piercing chill those words pour down his veins is  _worse_  than being doused by a bucket of ice-cold water—and David would know, because he actually  _experienced_  how that was like. He feels his heart  _crumbling_  inside his ribs; he lays his palms flat against Cook’s chest and—with a strength David hadn’t known he can still find within himself—defiantly  _pushes him away_.

Startled, Cook falls back on his haunches and stares up at David in utter shock. “Archie…?”

David rises into a sitting position and presses the heels of his palms against his eyes, angrily fighting the tears that have suddenly risen. He knows he’s being irrational, knows he has no  _right_  to feel betrayed because—because they had both been careful  _not_  to make any promises when he left, because they agreed to—to set each other  _free_ —even though—even though they had been  _together_ , in every conceivable way, before—before all  _this_ —and they had never,  _ever_  needed to use a condom before, so the only reason Cook needs one right now is because— _is because_ —

“Archie,  _hey_ , look at me—”

David feels the bile rising in his throat, and he chokes it back; he presses his fingers against his mouth to stop the  _sob_  that’s threatening to escape and vehemently shakes his head as he rolls away from the bed.

“I guess two years really has been too long,” he whispers brokenly.

For the second time that evening, David finds the breath knocked out of him as Cook  _launches_  himself at David and tackles him back to the bed.

“Let me go,” he cries beneath the weight of Cook’s body draped over him as he weakly, futilely hits him with shaking fists. “ _Please_  let me go!”

It only serves to make Cook tighten his hold on him. “No,” he answers roughly: “ _Never again_.”

“Cook,  _please_ —”

“ ** _There isn’t anyone else_**.” 

For several heart-stopping seconds, silence reigns as the room is filled with nothing but the sound of their mingled heavy breaths. David stares wide-eyed at the ceiling when Cook  _crumples_  against him as he gathers David tightly in his arms.

“There has never been anyone else,” Cook pleads against his neck, his voice garbled and watery. “Archie.  _David_. Please believe me. All this time—”

Cook’s voice suddenly cracks with emotion, and with it, David feels the same happening to his heart.

“…  _There was never anyone else_.”

Something cold and wet drops onto the skin of his neck, and David squeezes his eyes shut as he folds his arms around Cook at the telltale sign of his shaking. Wrapped in the solace of David’s arms, Cook sags against him and finally, finally lets himself  _break_.

Gently, David turns them both to their side; he cradles Cook’s head and tucks it under his chin as he lets him ride out the storm. He tangles his legs with Cook’s and runs his palms soothingly up and down his back until the last of his trembling subsides. He waits patiently until Cook’s breathing has evened out before he gathers the courage to speak.

“Cook,” David murmurs against his hair as he takes a deep breath and finally addresses the humongous elephant in the room: “All these months since I’ve come home… why didn’t you talk to me?”

He feels Cook exhale shakily against his throat before melding himself impossibly closer to David’s body. “I didn’t want to assume,” he whispers against David’s throat. “That you still wanted this. That you would still… have me.”

The hesitation, the  _doubt_  in Cook’s words stabs David deeper than any thought of someone else sharing Cook’s bed, of someone else warming his body at night. “You could’ve simply asked,” David points out softly, planting a kiss, butterfly-light, on Cook’s forehead—a humble offering of a healing balm several months too late for the wound David himself has inflicted for far too long with his absence.

Cook’s fingers curl against the skin of David’s back, clinging tightly. He buries his face in David’s chest as if to speak directly to his heart in mute apology, knowing that the pain, the suffering, the  _loneliness_ , had been mutual. “I was a coward, Arch,” says Cook quietly. “I was fucking  _scared_ , because I couldn’t bear facing the truth. It was a selfish, stupid, and fucking pathetic move, but it was far less painful to avoid facing the possibility that you might have already chosen to move on without me.”

David stills. “But I thought…” he says slowly as a tight knot in his chest begins to unravel. “ _You_  were the one who moved on.”

At this, Cook finally eases back to look up at him with his brows furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”

He remembers the first time he heard it, and the unmistakeable certainty deep within him—the part of his soul that has always,  _always_  responded to the call of Cook’s music—that knew it had been meant for  _him_.

“Haven’t you already wrote… the last song you’ll write for me?”

He is caught off guard when Cook surges up to kiss him once,  _hard_ , before he pulls back enough to let David catch his breath in surprise.

“I was wrong,” Cook says fiercely as he cups David’s face in his hands, forcing David’s wide-eyed gaze to meet his eyes. “I was wrong, thinking my heart can be my own,  _again_.”

The blinds that have fallen over Cook’s eyes have all but disappeared; now, David feels his body alighting at the fire  _roaring_  in those hazel eyes: the flare of pain and regret, the blaze of determination and fierce hope, the flame of passion—of  _love_ —

And the way Cook is looking at him incinerates all the doubts lingering in David’s own heart.

“It has always been yours,” Cook quietly declares.

And it’s a heartrendingly beautiful sight to see fire and water coalesce as Cook lets the tears flow shamelessly. David’s own cheeks feel wet, and his vision is blurring, but he is finally… finally  _smiling_.

With hands that have never been steadier, he reaches out to wipe the dampness away from Cook’s face. Cook’s eyes fall close and his lashes brush David’s knuckles, making him shiver.

“Do you want it back?” David asks softly.

When Cook’s eyes flutter open, it’s to a surge of fresh tears, and David catches them all in his fingers.

“No,” Cook whispers. “I want  _yours_  back.”

This time, when they kiss, David feels  _everything_. Instead of being blanketed in a cloudy daze, David’s senses now  _sharpen_ , hyperaware of every moist cling of lips, every sensuous slide of tongue, every ticklish brush of stubble, every gentle bite of teeth. When they finally pull apart for air, with Cook’s mouth still hovering a mere hair’s breadth away, Cook makes one final plea.

“Please give it back, Arch,” he rasps hoarsely as his hands stroke David’s jaw, over his neck and behind to clutch at his nape, gently lifting his mouth up to meet Cook’s that’s humbly begging for more.

“Please… please be mine,  _again_.”

* * *

 

They take their time, the urgency simmering down into something more tender, the need for pleasure overtaken by the need to savour, to linger, to  _cherish_  what they both mistakenly thought that they’ve already lost.

David clenches the sheets tightly beneath him as Cook trails wet, open-mouthed kisses up his thigh. “Beautiful,” he breathes, looking up at David as he places his hands on David’s knees and he spreads his legs open; David’s cheeks are  _burning_  from the unabashed look of smouldering  _want_  on Cook’s face, but Cook adamantly holds his gaze. “God, you’re so beautiful, Arch, do you even have any  _idea_ —”

And David can’t even dignify that with an answer, not when every neuron in his body suddenly sizzles with keening pleasure as Cook’s tongue swipes broadly at his hole.

“Cook— _ah!_ ” he cries, the sensation almost unbearably intimate after so long; his hands cling of their own accord to Cook’s hair as he arches, helplessly torn between pulling away from the overwhelming stimulation and pushing  _into_  Cook’s mouth, wanting  _more_.

“ _Fuck_ , I’ve forgotten what you tasted like,” Cook says hoarsely before he delves back in, seemingly intent on gorging himself now that he  _remembers_.  

David falls back to the bed, failing to swallow back the whimpers and gasps that are being wrenched from his throat, writhing underneath the tender assault as Cook eagerly and ravenously  _fucks him with his tongue_.

He can come from this alone, even without a touch to his cock, just because he’s been so  _starved_  for Cook both body and soul, but what he wants— _oh_  what he really wants is— 

“Please,” he sobs, and he can’t even form coherent words anymore as he’s simply reduced to begging: “ _Please_.”

Cook must have sensed the way his limbs are beginning to tremble warningly, because he finally eases back—but not without one last slow, longing swipe of his tongue on David’s balls and up the length of his cock, seemingly unable to resist tasting every part of David and making him moan.

“Shhh, it’s okay, I’ve got you,” Cook murmurs soothingly, suckling the leaking head as it twitches feebly in his mouth. “I’ve got you, baby.”

David’s entire body is suffused with warmth at the endearment he hasn’t heard for so long, feeling his heart swell to twice its size inside his ribs at the unmasked affection in Cook’s tone. Cook must have noticed it too, because his gaze turns fond and soft as he looks down at the way David’s body is instinctively straining towards him,  _needing_  him.

Unable to bear the overwhelming  _tenderness_  of that expression, David squeezes his eyes shut as he senses Cook pulling away. He bites his lip when he hears the sound of a bottle cap being opened, knowing what’s about to come next.

His breath hitches when he feels a slick finger circling his hole, softening the ring of muscle before slowly, slowly inching its way  _in_.

“Easy,” he hears Cook say, his voice shaky and rough as he slides all the way inside. “Fuck, you’re so  _tight_ ,” Cook breathes in awe as he begins sliding back out.

David can taste blood on his tongue from the way he’s biting so hard to keep himself from crying out, his body unused to the intrusion after being so long without it, even as he feels electricity shoot up and down his spine at the immense pleasure-pain.  

Cook is incredibly patient with him, working him open slowly and gently with deft fingers, steadily adding two, then  _three_  more inside him, breathily praising him in a voice that’s filled with nothing but hushed reverence. David feels almost  _unworthy_  of it, knowing how Cook’s body must be thrumming for release as well, and he wishes he can make this easier for both of them, contrite at how Cook’s denying his own pleasure  _just for his sake_ —

“ _Stop_ ,” Cook says suddenly as his fingers increase their pace inside of David, and with a ragged intake of breath, David belatedly realises he’s been saying all of that out  _loud_. “Are you fucking kidding me, Archie, do you know how it makes me feel that—that no one else got to open you up like this, and that’s why you’re so fucking  _tight_  right now, like you’re a goddamn virgin all over again,  _fuck_ —do you know how it makes me feel that all this time, you—you’ve been  _saving yourself for me like this_ —”

David forces his eyes open at the way Cook’s tone is nearing hysteria; despite the wildness of his gaze, he sees something  _vulnerable_  within the depths of those hazel eyes, desperately needing reassurance.

He reaches out to twine his fingers through the soft hairs at Cook’s nape and urges him down to meet him.

“There was no one else before you,” he whispers as he holds Cook’s wide-eyed gaze. “And there was no one else  _after_  you.”

It was true that he made no promises to Cook when he left. But what Cook hadn’t known back then was that David made all those silent vows anyway… to  _himself_.

And now, right when Cook needs to hear it most, he gives voice to all those promises he has kept, the most important being: “… There never will be.”

Something in Cook’s gaze  _shatters_ , and David feels it within him too—all of the barriers between them falling apart in the same way that they now fall into each other’s arms. They  _drown_  in each other’s mouth, gasping for each other’s air, breaking through the waves of doubt that they’ve been submerged under all these months of silence.

“Cook,” David moans in between Cook’s fevered kisses: “ _David_ , please—”

“Anything,” is Cook’s hoarse reply as he fellates David’s tongue: “Fuck, Archie,  _anything_.”

They break apart from each other’s mouth with a sharp inhale; breathing heavily, David clings to Cook as he begs:

“Come back to me,” David says tremblingly as he arches his hips and spreads himself open. “I’m ready, Cook, please—please come—come  _inside_  me.”

And it almost feels like  _torture_ , like losing his  _life support_ , the way Cook has to release him momentarily in order to quickly slick himself up with lube; when he finally returns shakily to David’s waiting arms, he leans down to touch his forehead against David’s so he can look into his eyes one final time.

“Archie.  _David_ ,” Cook whispers, his voice thick and full with emotion as he positions himself at David’s entrance. “Let me fall for you— _again_.”

With fresh tears—this time, of  _happiness_ —David gives him an answering smile as he gently cups that beloved face.

“… Let me catch you.”

And when Cook finally breaches him, David finally, finally feels  _alive_ , and all at once, they are both whole— _again_.

And Cook  _falls_ , over and over, into David—inside his body, inside his music, inside his soul, inside his  _heart_ —and David opens for him, welcoming him,  _catching_  him, the way he always has and always will, till the clocks run out, till the sun breaks down.

As they move together in this never-forgotten rhythm of their bodies, there are new vows that flash through David’s mind, as bright and as clear as the day he first vowed to himself that Cook will have his love,  _endlessly_.

_I will never let you fall like a stone in the water_ , he vows as Cook’s thrusts become more forceful and erratic, leaving David to hold on to his shoulders for dear life as his hips snap forward relentlessly, finally allowing himself to chase his own pleasure.

_I will never let you fall like a plane out of the sky_ , he vows as he seeks Cook’s mouth and refuses to stop drinking from those lips, their kiss messy and filthy and lacking all finesse as they  _devour_  each other.

_I will never let you crash_ , he vows as he moans into Cook’s mouth when Cook fists his cock and begins pumping in time with his thrusts, urging David to let go, fall in, and drown in this moment with him.   _I will never, **ever**  let you burn your heart out_.

_But together_ … 

With a final, powerful thrust, Cook groans onto David’s shoulder as his climax hits him, filling David mere seconds before David himself cries out his own release, and they finally tumble over the edge—as  _one_.

_Together… we can fly_.

 

* * *

 

_“… And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”_

 

 

 

 


End file.
